When the 55th Grammy Awards nominees were announced on Wednesday, the category for Best Dance Recording featured a lineup representing the world’s most popular DJs — Avicii, Calvin Harris, Skrillex, Swedish House Mafia, Al Walser. Wait, what? Okay, those first four ring a bell, but who in the flying eff is Al Walser? Well, I’m glad you asked!
Turns out, nobody knows who Al Walser is. That’s because Mr. Walser is a nobody in Grammy circles — and especially in the EDM community — except via the terrible music video posted above (Dear Haters, here’s your chance to say it sounds just like anything SHM would churn out). Obviously, the oversight is not going over well in Grammy circles (because they cherish the integrity of their award show). One anonymous popular musician chimed in:
This kind of thing doesn’t happen. [The Grammy Academy] takes this really seriously. They are super embarrassed that this happened. I still can’t believe it.
An anonymous record exec was equally baffled:
I don’t know how he did it, [The Grammy Academy Administrators] are very strict usually. They make you leave the room if your stuff is being voted on, things like that. It’s obvious that there is no way that this guy could have legitimately gotten himself included, but it’s amazing that he pulled this off. Amazing and sad.
Anyway, here’s what we do know about “Al Walser”:
- He has — or, had — a Facebook page claiming he is a “Grammy Voting and Nominating member”. (Not true)
- He has a book — “Make It Big: The Secret Path to Break In Today’s Music Industry” — which gives advice on finding success in the music industry (via “secret tools”, of course).
- The music video for “I Can’t Live Without You” had 20 views (according to house.net when his name appeared the nominee list).
- He’s the Grammys’ greatest networker, and spammed the whole community.
To give some perspective, the combined video views for the other artists on the list (based on a quick and unscientific search of Youtube): 180,000,000. So yeah, this is some trolling of epic proportions.
via House.net
